Legislation stops short of fully meeting safety, health needs

Monday, May 05, 2008

Every day, more than 7,500 miners go to work in Penn
sylvania's coal mines -- over 5,000 of them underground
-- to provide the fuel that powers the state and the nation.
They have parents, spouses and children who count on them to
come home, alive and whole, at the end of their shift.

But sometimes tragedy strikes. All too frequently, miners
suffer debilitating injuries at work. Some lose limbs. Some
never come home.

In the wake of the series of tragedies that have struck the
coalfields over the past several years, the federal
government and most of the other states where coal is mined
-- West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois and Virginia among them
-- have updated their laws and regulations to meet the
challenge of creating working environments in mines that are
as safe and healthy as possible.

Pennsylvania also recognized the need to enact enhanced
safety and health laws. Unfortunately, legislation produced
by the state Senate earlier this year stops short of fully
meeting this challenge. That is why, at the urging of the
United Mine Workers of America, the state House Committee on
Environmental Resources and Energy, in a bipartisan vote,
amended the Senate bill to include protections for miners
the Senate left out. The new language will provide
critically needed safety and health provisions that are
present in other states' laws, but not the
Senate's version.

Within hours of the House committee's action, some in
the Senate attacked these improvements, saying they were not
part of some phantom "gentleman's agreement"
that was supposed to guide the language included in the
bill.

Let me be very clear: The UMWA did not and would not agree to any language that provides Pennsylvania miners less protection than that enjoyed by miners in other states. When it comes to ensuring the safety and health of coal miners, we will not compromise and we will not negotiate. For anyone to suggest that we should tells me they just do not understand who we are and what we stand for....

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